I have been using a pan of water and towel suspended from the top. It has been a bit of trial and error with the humidity jumping to 78% and dropping to 58% over the course of a few days. I am now steadily at 62%.

I have a Hunter Night Glo humidifier. I got it to add some humidity to a few rooms during the winter. It never seemed to do much in a few rooms, but it has worked well in the mini curing room I set up. It also has a built in humidity controller. Might too big for going inside a fridge curing chamber though.

I've used a combination of a pond fogger, an aquarium air pump and a sealed plastic sandwich box.

I've put the fogger in the box with the water and pump air into the box. I have a tube leaving the box that goes into my fridge. I can deliver a stream of fog to wherever it's needed and can monitor/top up the water without opening the door.

wow...im almost jealous - I have the opposite problem. Its hard to keep things dry enough here in Virginia. I typically just use a bowl of brine which seems to keep my curing chest (wine fridge) pretty regulated... I crack the door about every 3 days for 12 hours to lower the humidity even more.

The Eva Mist I have used for the last two months has been horrible. The humidistat in it is wildly inaccurate, and finally crapped out - it now is either on or off.. which would be fine, since I am about to install a separate hygrostat, but unfortunately the unit has a power button, which resets when the unit powers off - so it cannot be controlled by an external unit.

I just got a Crane EE-5301 Cool Mist Humidifer - will have to see how that works out.

Hey Jason,Thanks for the site. It is very helpful. I have a question. I live in Portland, OR and in the 8 month winter we have a relative humidity of 75% and an average temperature of 40-55 degrees. I made a cabinet in my mudroom into a curing chamber and it stays pretty consistent at 68-80% RH and 48-55 degrees. I am hoping this will serve my curing needs as space to set up a dedicated fridge is slim. Anyway the question is about moisture loss: Is the loss pretty consistent over the whole period of curing or is there usually more loss in the beginning and then a gradual slowing of the rate?

I have a lonzino a coppa and a bresaola all hanging and after two weeks, the first I weighed them, they had lost 18-22% and then this past week they lost 5-6% which seems slower if I do the math. We did have a couple drier weeks when I first hung them and this past one has been on the wetter side so maybe that is the reason?

When I built my curing fridge I went with the Love controls (TS for temp and HS for humidity). They both work like champs. The humidifier I use is no longer made but was one of the Sunbeam ultrasonic models.

I'm now researching and building a "1-wire network" to get better data/control of things. I'll let you know in a few months how it works out. See this for more info on 1-wire networks: http://www.hobby-boards.com/catalog/howto_basics.php

With winter here, my basement is actually too cold now (not by much) and I find I need to heat the curing fridge a little to keep it in the right zone. I've been using a light bulb as a heat source but would like to use something which doesn't give off light (degrades the fat) and is designed to be a heater. Any suggestions from anyone?

I tried an aquarium heater pad for snakes but it doesn't give off enough heat. Hrm... maybe I should just start a small fire in my curing box. ;-)

Thanks! By chance I'm heading to PetSmart today anyway so I'll check out that ceramic bulb.

I've been reading Toldra's books ("Handbook of Fermented Meat and Poultry" and "Dry-Cured Meat Products") and cross-linking/oxidation of the lipids due to light is mentioned but, like you, I wonder how much a light bulb will affect it. Oxidation is also driven by... oxygen in the air. I also wonder what wavelengths drive the cross-linking. A regular lightbulb has only a limited spectrum and I suspect (but don't know) the cross-linking is driven more by wavelengths closer the to UV spectrum.

Also, I was wrong about my humidifier being a sunbeam - it's a Sunpentown:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O3I26M/ref=s9_simp_gw_s0_p364_t5?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-3&pf_rd_r=1E3YQ8QWK81VF8GVSQK0&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938811&pf_rd_i=507846

I have thought that if you wanted to "play" you could take the ultrasonic disk out of a smaller/cheaper humidifier and put it in a tub of water. Then you'd have something similar to what Tom built above.

As a follow-up, thanks for the suggestion for the ceramic bulb! I built a small controller for it by using two outdoor outlet boxes - one for the light fixture and a second for a rheostat and an indicator LED (to tell if it's on or not). Works great keeping the box cycling and, this weekend I did a test to see if it'll get the box warm enough to ferment (80-85 degrees) and it's working well.